51 Birch Street is a documentary of a filmmaker, Doug Block, going down the slippery slope of revisiting his parents’ marriage after his mom’s death. It was an inadvertent project. Like Capturing the Friedmans, most of the footage was shot as home video without any inkling it would become scenes of a story. The film is dense and introspective. It demands you to either look closely at your own relationships or tune out. As a married man, I don’t think I could tune it out. In a way, having the opportunity to look at a marriage this way is like a wish come true. It’s an examination of a couple at the end of life–not an examination of what this marriage was supposed to be, but what it was: prickly, difficult, boring, estranged, warm, loving, limited, broken and, on some level, successful.

Early in the film, the image of marriage is mentioned. Doug’s mom and dad–and most of their friends–got married with the sense that life would be like the movies. He even has photos of them looking like movie stars. His dad returns from WWII fit and handsome. He and his girl “fall madly in love” (meaning an intense physical attraction). They get married.

The film depicts two movie-inspired images of marriage. Image number one could be called the Silver Screen Romance. In my mind it’s Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn embracing. That image was “marriage.” It was quickly followed up with image number two: Perfect Suburban Life. Picture an image in a glossy home magazine of the perfect family sitting down to breakfast. “Family.”

These are the images real life has to stack up against. No wonder the messiness of life can feel like a tumor that needs to be cut out. What I love about little no-budget documentaries like Doug’s is they hold up the image of what life (in this case marriage) really is. It’s sobering. Honestly, I’m tempted to say it should be shown to every couple applying for a marriage license.

It’s tempting to say we’re more enlightened now. We know Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn aren’t how it’s really supposed to be, and that 1950’s women were repressed. We know those images are false. But what about Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant? Oh yeah, they’re just movies. They’re not real. But when the credits roll on those films and I feel a subtle disappointment my relationship isn’t more like what I just watched, that feeling is real. I can’t deny the feeling. These are the images I’m talking about. Something false, yet something created to make me feel good so I’ll pay eight dollars for a ticket. It comes home from the theater with me as a feeling of what my relationship lacks. All for an eight dollar ticket. I’d rather have 51 Birch Street.